Curing an ailing system: The turnaround of Summa Health and its future

AKRON, Ohio – Summa Health isn’t the Cleveland Clinic or University Hospitals. It doesn’t want to be. It wants to be the go-to community hospital for its corner of the state.

After a tumultuous 2017 plagued the Akron-based health system, the challenge in turning around Summa will be in regaining the medical and greater Northeast Ohio community’s trust, hospital officials say.

In response to the challenge, Summa is expanding its footprint. It’s preparing to open a new $223-million tower on the main campus and new ambulatory and intensive outpatient units for opioid and other addictions.

The system is investing and “doubling down” to serve the needs of the community and to attract new patients, said Dr. Cliff Deveny, who was named president and CEO of the system in October.

About 21 percent, or 30,000, of those who need hospitalized from Summa’s coverage area travel to Cleveland instead of going to a local hospital.

“That means they don’t go to Akron General; they don’t go to Crystal Clinic; they don’t go to Western Reserve.”

Deveny wants those people to choose Summa instead of traveling north to Cleveland.

A healthy rebound

After restructuring and consolidation throughout 2017 and recouping more than $32 million it expected to lose, Summa still ended last year $28 million in the red. But through the first nine months of this year, the system had an operating income of $18.7 million and is on trend to finish the year in the black.

The short-term goal is to “continue to increase profitability,” Deveny said. “We’re very much continuing to focus on operational metrics, financial metrics.”

In addition to improved metrics, the hospital system has been working to rebuild its reputation after a series of events last year left employees and many in the community questioning its stability.

In June 2017, Summa eliminated 300 positions to stave off a projected $60-million year-end budget deficit. Earlier that year, its then-CEO Dr. Thomas Malone stepped down after receiving a no-confidence vote from Summa’s doctors over fallout from severing a longtime contract with emergency physicians. Summa later lost its accreditation for its emergency medicine residency program, a program it has yet been able to get reinstated.

Despite all of the setbacks, Deveny, an Akron native and former Summa executive who returned in early 2017, thinks the system is now on an upward trajectory.

“We feel confident that we can be here for another 125 years. We know financially we are in a good situation to go it alone if needed,” Deveny said.

But Summa doesn’t plan to go it alone. In September, Summa’s board announced that it was searching for a potential partnership or merger with another health system to help ensure long-term financial stability. At the time, Deveny said he wanted to find a partner while Summa was in a strong financial position to do so.

“Things will never be stable in healthcare; the business model is changing so rapidly. As we’ve stated, part of the reason for the partnership is the instability and unpredictability,” Deveny said. “We’re going to have to be just comfortable with change and the dynamics of change and constantly making sure that we’re nimble enough to make the moves we have to but always keeping focused on the mission, which is being the steward of the community’s health.”

The system initially identified about 30 regional and national health systems as potential partners, Deveny said. The board expects to finalize a deal by late 2019.

As consolidation in the national healthcare market continues, independent hospital systems are partnering with larger players to invest in electronic medical records and in better equipment and facilities, said Allan Baumgarten, a Minnesota-based healthcare consultant who tracks the Ohio market. And to remain competitive.

The Cleveland Clinic in recent years took over Akron General Hospital, bringing the Cleveland powerhouse system into more direct competition with Summa.

And independent hospitals are struggling to attract talent, Baumgarten added.

“They have a hard time recruiting and retaining doctors, especially specialists, who don’t want to work in small town Ohio,” Baumgarten said.

“It’s hard to recruit in this community,” Deveny said.

To combat that, Summa is expanding its existing obstetrics, medicine and surgery residency programs and looking at potential fellowships it can offer.

“In Northeast Ohio, people who train here or live here are more apt to stay,” Deveny said.

Meeting the need

Deveny and the board want to make sure Summa remains in the community, a community where the need for services is growing.

In Summa’s five-county area ­­– Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit and Wayne counties, there is a demand for behavioral health and opioid addiction treatment, Deveny said. And Summa wants to meet that need.

“[Those services] are not only expensive but they’re the chronic things that affect our community, and they don’t pay very well. They don’t very often get reimbursed at the level of cost,” Deveny explained.

He said Summa is one of the few providers in the area offering behavioral health and opioid addition treatment. Three behavioral health facilities in Canton said changes this year in how the state reimburses for Medicare contributed to either their closing or sale.

Meanwhile, Summa opened two new intensive outpatient programs for addiction treatment – one at its St. Thomas campus in Akron and another in Hudson.

Summa also is in the midst of a $350-million facility transformation plan to modernize its buildings. The $270-million phase one involves the creation of a new 300,000-square-foot patient tower set to open in July 2019 and the renovation of the Akron and Barberton campuses.

With the new tower, roughly 80 percent of Summa’s patient rooms will be private, up from 30 percent, said Dr. David Custodio, president of Summa’s Akron campus.

The new tower will feature larger operating rooms and modernized rooms, as well as a new Women’s Health program, including four birthing rooms for tub births. Birthing units are often one of the first things cut by hospitals looking to save money.

While construction crews still wander the grounds and ladders and drills fill every floor, Custodio and other hospital executives already see the future of Summa taking shape next door.